Room At The Table
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"Room at the Table" by Keith Hewitt
"The Problem with Miracles" by C. David McKirachan
Room at the Table
by Keith Hewitt
James 2:1-10 (11-13) 14-17
The hubbub was past, now, the dinner had been served, the dishes washed and put away in their appointed places, and the tables had been wiped down until their white plastic tops practically sparkled. One by one the parishioners and others had left, after congratulating Pastor Sumner on a glorious 75th anniversary celebration for the church. The banner still hung on the far wall of the fellowship hall, he noted critically -- he would have to come in early tomorrow and take it down...or, better, get a trustee to do it.
The Harvest Dinner would be coming soon, and then the Harvest Carnival, and the Hunter’s Breakfast...it wouldn’t do to leave the anniversary banner up, not at all.
“Let one of the trustees do it,” the other person in the room said quietly.
He blushed, realized he must have been staring at the banner. “I could get up there and do it -- tomorrow.”
“You could,” the other man said. “But it sets a bad precedent, because you’re young and nimble. If the next pastor appointed here is neither, they might still expect him or her to go scampering around on ladders, taking down party decorations.”
“Fair enough,” Sumner judged, after considering the advice. “Did you have a good time, John?”
The older man smiled and nodded, reached into an inner coat pocket and pulled out a pipe, raised it slightly and tilted his head. Sumner nodded, and John Randall breathed a quiet sigh of relief as he checked the tobacco in the bowl, then placed the chewed-on stem in his mouth. He pulled a pipe lighter out of another pocket, held the wick over the bowl and pushed the two ends of the lighter together, striking a spark -- once, twice, then it lit. Still silent, he puffed several times, then drew a long breath.
He was rewarded with a thin curl of smoke rising lazily up from the pipe. He sighed audibly, then, and put the lighter away, took the pipe out of his mouth long enough to gesture with it toward the banner. “You had a fine celebration, son -- the food was great, the quartet was talented, and the fellowship -- the fellowship was fine. You had a nice turnout. And having the Superintendent here was nice, too -- the old man added the right air of gravitas to the celebration.”
Sumner smiled slightly at the phrase “old man,” coming from someone who was, himself, nearing retirement. “I was pleased that he could make the drive today,” he said simply.
“Your service was first class, your sermon was finely honed, and the choir could give the angels a run for their money.” Randall stopped, then, and drew deeply on his pipe, again. He let it out slowly, took another long, silent puff. Sumner found himself frowning, waiting for his visitor to break the sudden silence, because he knew his friend and mentor well enough to know there was a “but” coming.
And the more time it had to grow, the bigger it would be.
Randall seemed to be considering his words carefully, finally took the pipe out of his mouth again to speak. “I’m wondering, though -- did you notice one strange thing about your worship, today?”
Sumner hesitated, rapidly thinking back over the entire worship service, from announcements to benediction. It had gone smoothly, a joyous celebration of the church’s 75th anniversary; what had he missed? After a few moments he shrugged, made an “I don’t know” gesture with his hands.
A shorter pause, this time. “Well...I couldn’t help but notice the irony. When you celebrated the Great Thanksgiving, you invited everyone to the table.”
The younger pastor nodded. “Of course. We practice an open communion.”
“Of course, and you were careful to mention that after the words of institution. You invited any and all who recognized Jesus Christ as their savior to come forward and join in the Great Thanksgiving, regardless of their denomination, regardless of whether they were first time visitors or long time members. You were quite eloquent in your invitation to come to the table.”
He paused, looked intently at Sumner, as though willing him to understand.
He didn’t.
“What do you mean, John?” he asked with a kind of helpless expression. The teasing had gone on long enough.
Randall swept his hand to take in the whole fellowship hall. “You invited everyone to come to the table...but you didn’t invite everyone to come to this table. I watched you, Tom. When the service was over and you were standing at the door, I watched you shake every single person’s hand and invite them to stay for the meal... every person except for one.”
Instantly, the scene sprang into memory, and he sputtered. “But -- I know who you mean -- but...good grief, John, did you smell him? Did you see him? He was wearing a sport coat over his overalls, and he smelled, because there was cow sh -- manure -- on his shoes.”
Sumner hesitated, then plunged on. “He’s not a regular here, if he was he would have known how to dress. He looked nervous, like he knew he was out of place, and I didn’t want him to feel worse, by being among all of the rest of us in our good clothes.”
“So you didn’t remind, or invite him, to stay for dinner for his own good?”
“That’s right. He would have been out of place.”
“I see.”
“That’s might humanitarian of you, son. But why does it remind me of my last CO in the army? After President Truman integrated the army, he just kept finding reasons to turn down any transfer into the outfit who happened to be a Negro. But he wasn’t prejudiced, mind you -- he just knew they wouldn’t feel comfortable being in an outfit that was mostly white guys, so he was doing it for their own good.” He stopped, smiled crookedly and raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Now that’s not fair,” Sumner blustered, “He would have felt out of place, in here among his -- with people he didn’t know, all of them dressed up, and him like that.”
“You were about to say ‘betters,’ weren’t you? Among his betters?”
“Not at all.”
Randall shrugged. “OK. I’ll believe you, Tom, I’ve never known you to lie before. But I’ve got to get going -- it’s a long drive back to Joliet -- but I want to leave you with this bit of advice from an old preacher: no man, woman, or child who walks through those church doors looking for grace...or comfort...or God’s word...or just plain fellowship, should ever -- and I mean ever -- feel uncomfortable about their decision to walk through the door. And if they are -- if you even suspect they are -- it is the job of you and your people to make sure they don’t stay uncomfortable.”
“But -- ”
“No buts, Tom. If you can provide a place where anyone can come in comfort, and get whatever it is they need spiritually, and leave feeling like they’ve been in the presence of God’s people, then you’ll have a church that won’t ever have to worry about shrinking, or losing members -- because it’ll be doing God’s work.” He took another long draw on his pipe while his young companion digested the advice -- and when it looked like he would swallow it without regurgitating, Randall added, “Do you understand, Tom? If you thought that man would feel uncomfortable because of how he looked or how he smelled, it was your job to disarm those worries. Or try, at least. But not feed into them.”
“Got it, John. I understand.”
“You saw a man who didn’t care how he dressed, how he looked when he came to church. I saw a man who hurried to get through his chores, then came to church as fast as he could, so as not to miss more of it than he needed to, and wasn’t too concerned about the rest of it.”
“Right. Point taken, John. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, like I said, I have to hit the road if I’m going to be home before dark, and Margaret worries if I’m out driving after the sun goes down.” He reached out, shook Sumner’s hand, then took one more look around the hall, nodded, and turned to go.
He had not taken more than a step before Sumner said quietly, “John I lied.”
Randall turned, regarded him silently, raising an eyebrow again.
“When I saw that man -- when I smelled that man -- all I could think of was how he just didn’t belong, not today. And I was afraid that he would offend the Superintendent -- that he would wonder what kind of people this church was attracting, and it would just spoil everything we were trying to do here. The Superintendent was right behind him, and I just thought, ‘Oh no, we can’t have this,’ so I was perfunctory, and practically urged him out the door instead of inviting him.”
John Randall smiled wistfully. “I know, son. Who do you think told me what you’d done?”
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). Keith's newest book NaTiVity Dramas: The Third Season will be published September 2012. He is a local pastor, co-youth leader, former Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife, two children, and assorted dogs and cats.
* * *
The Problem with Miracles
by C. David McKirachan
Mark 7:24-37
Through the years people have come to me on a regular basis either asking me to facilitate a miracle for them or a loved one or complaining of God’s silence and inactivity in the midst of their desperate pleas to heal someone precious to them. There is a lot of blame and guilt involved, complete with threats running the spectrum from withholding pledges, leaving the church, giving up their faith, to hurting either themselves, me, or my family. It seems this miracle business is fraught with peril.
Most of us think Jesus was above all of that. I mean He could heal somebody when He wanted to. So no problem. But there seem to have been all kinds of problems Jesus had to confront. It seems that sometimes He didn’t want to perform. And other times when He did, He got into hot water because of circumstances. Other times He chose to use miracles to cause controversy. And other times, it seems He was just plain pooped and wanted to be off line. No wonder He kept telling the ones who were healed to keep it to themselves. Who would want to live in the middle of all that desperation and misunderstanding?
But in some ways that is the human condition. Most of us live in either oblivious denial or desperation, most of the time. We are beings who want and need. It’s no surprise we are so easily manipulated by ads, all of which promise an end, or at least provide us a breather from our need. Jesus came to live among us, to be one of us, as we are, not as we ought to be. Didn’t He need?
It seems He did, in all the Human ways, hunger, fatigue, sadness, loneliness, but those basic needs didn’t separate Him from Himself or others. He held onto Himself and to them, because He never forgot that He was a child of God, loved and secure.
Someone once asked me what it was that I hope to accomplish when I walk into places of death and pain and darkness. I told them that I’ve realized it isn’t my job to solve these problems. God can if God choses to, and I’m not in the business of manipulating God. My job is to provide the non-anxious presence of Christ there in that darkness. If I can do that, who knows what might happen? But this I do know that where He is, healing walks with Him.
Pretty neat, huh?
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. Two of his books, I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder, have been published by Westminster John Knox Press. McKirachan was raised in a pastor's home and he is the brother of a pastor, and he has discovered his name indicates that he has druid roots. Storytelling seems to be a congenital disorder. He lives with his 21-year-old son Ben and his dog Sam.
*****************************************
StoryShare, September 6, 2015, issue.
Copyright 2015 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
"Room at the Table" by Keith Hewitt
"The Problem with Miracles" by C. David McKirachan
Room at the Table
by Keith Hewitt
James 2:1-10 (11-13) 14-17
The hubbub was past, now, the dinner had been served, the dishes washed and put away in their appointed places, and the tables had been wiped down until their white plastic tops practically sparkled. One by one the parishioners and others had left, after congratulating Pastor Sumner on a glorious 75th anniversary celebration for the church. The banner still hung on the far wall of the fellowship hall, he noted critically -- he would have to come in early tomorrow and take it down...or, better, get a trustee to do it.
The Harvest Dinner would be coming soon, and then the Harvest Carnival, and the Hunter’s Breakfast...it wouldn’t do to leave the anniversary banner up, not at all.
“Let one of the trustees do it,” the other person in the room said quietly.
He blushed, realized he must have been staring at the banner. “I could get up there and do it -- tomorrow.”
“You could,” the other man said. “But it sets a bad precedent, because you’re young and nimble. If the next pastor appointed here is neither, they might still expect him or her to go scampering around on ladders, taking down party decorations.”
“Fair enough,” Sumner judged, after considering the advice. “Did you have a good time, John?”
The older man smiled and nodded, reached into an inner coat pocket and pulled out a pipe, raised it slightly and tilted his head. Sumner nodded, and John Randall breathed a quiet sigh of relief as he checked the tobacco in the bowl, then placed the chewed-on stem in his mouth. He pulled a pipe lighter out of another pocket, held the wick over the bowl and pushed the two ends of the lighter together, striking a spark -- once, twice, then it lit. Still silent, he puffed several times, then drew a long breath.
He was rewarded with a thin curl of smoke rising lazily up from the pipe. He sighed audibly, then, and put the lighter away, took the pipe out of his mouth long enough to gesture with it toward the banner. “You had a fine celebration, son -- the food was great, the quartet was talented, and the fellowship -- the fellowship was fine. You had a nice turnout. And having the Superintendent here was nice, too -- the old man added the right air of gravitas to the celebration.”
Sumner smiled slightly at the phrase “old man,” coming from someone who was, himself, nearing retirement. “I was pleased that he could make the drive today,” he said simply.
“Your service was first class, your sermon was finely honed, and the choir could give the angels a run for their money.” Randall stopped, then, and drew deeply on his pipe, again. He let it out slowly, took another long, silent puff. Sumner found himself frowning, waiting for his visitor to break the sudden silence, because he knew his friend and mentor well enough to know there was a “but” coming.
And the more time it had to grow, the bigger it would be.
Randall seemed to be considering his words carefully, finally took the pipe out of his mouth again to speak. “I’m wondering, though -- did you notice one strange thing about your worship, today?”
Sumner hesitated, rapidly thinking back over the entire worship service, from announcements to benediction. It had gone smoothly, a joyous celebration of the church’s 75th anniversary; what had he missed? After a few moments he shrugged, made an “I don’t know” gesture with his hands.
A shorter pause, this time. “Well...I couldn’t help but notice the irony. When you celebrated the Great Thanksgiving, you invited everyone to the table.”
The younger pastor nodded. “Of course. We practice an open communion.”
“Of course, and you were careful to mention that after the words of institution. You invited any and all who recognized Jesus Christ as their savior to come forward and join in the Great Thanksgiving, regardless of their denomination, regardless of whether they were first time visitors or long time members. You were quite eloquent in your invitation to come to the table.”
He paused, looked intently at Sumner, as though willing him to understand.
He didn’t.
“What do you mean, John?” he asked with a kind of helpless expression. The teasing had gone on long enough.
Randall swept his hand to take in the whole fellowship hall. “You invited everyone to come to the table...but you didn’t invite everyone to come to this table. I watched you, Tom. When the service was over and you were standing at the door, I watched you shake every single person’s hand and invite them to stay for the meal... every person except for one.”
Instantly, the scene sprang into memory, and he sputtered. “But -- I know who you mean -- but...good grief, John, did you smell him? Did you see him? He was wearing a sport coat over his overalls, and he smelled, because there was cow sh -- manure -- on his shoes.”
Sumner hesitated, then plunged on. “He’s not a regular here, if he was he would have known how to dress. He looked nervous, like he knew he was out of place, and I didn’t want him to feel worse, by being among all of the rest of us in our good clothes.”
“So you didn’t remind, or invite him, to stay for dinner for his own good?”
“That’s right. He would have been out of place.”
“I see.”
“That’s might humanitarian of you, son. But why does it remind me of my last CO in the army? After President Truman integrated the army, he just kept finding reasons to turn down any transfer into the outfit who happened to be a Negro. But he wasn’t prejudiced, mind you -- he just knew they wouldn’t feel comfortable being in an outfit that was mostly white guys, so he was doing it for their own good.” He stopped, smiled crookedly and raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“Now that’s not fair,” Sumner blustered, “He would have felt out of place, in here among his -- with people he didn’t know, all of them dressed up, and him like that.”
“You were about to say ‘betters,’ weren’t you? Among his betters?”
“Not at all.”
Randall shrugged. “OK. I’ll believe you, Tom, I’ve never known you to lie before. But I’ve got to get going -- it’s a long drive back to Joliet -- but I want to leave you with this bit of advice from an old preacher: no man, woman, or child who walks through those church doors looking for grace...or comfort...or God’s word...or just plain fellowship, should ever -- and I mean ever -- feel uncomfortable about their decision to walk through the door. And if they are -- if you even suspect they are -- it is the job of you and your people to make sure they don’t stay uncomfortable.”
“But -- ”
“No buts, Tom. If you can provide a place where anyone can come in comfort, and get whatever it is they need spiritually, and leave feeling like they’ve been in the presence of God’s people, then you’ll have a church that won’t ever have to worry about shrinking, or losing members -- because it’ll be doing God’s work.” He took another long draw on his pipe while his young companion digested the advice -- and when it looked like he would swallow it without regurgitating, Randall added, “Do you understand, Tom? If you thought that man would feel uncomfortable because of how he looked or how he smelled, it was your job to disarm those worries. Or try, at least. But not feed into them.”
“Got it, John. I understand.”
“You saw a man who didn’t care how he dressed, how he looked when he came to church. I saw a man who hurried to get through his chores, then came to church as fast as he could, so as not to miss more of it than he needed to, and wasn’t too concerned about the rest of it.”
“Right. Point taken, John. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, like I said, I have to hit the road if I’m going to be home before dark, and Margaret worries if I’m out driving after the sun goes down.” He reached out, shook Sumner’s hand, then took one more look around the hall, nodded, and turned to go.
He had not taken more than a step before Sumner said quietly, “John I lied.”
Randall turned, regarded him silently, raising an eyebrow again.
“When I saw that man -- when I smelled that man -- all I could think of was how he just didn’t belong, not today. And I was afraid that he would offend the Superintendent -- that he would wonder what kind of people this church was attracting, and it would just spoil everything we were trying to do here. The Superintendent was right behind him, and I just thought, ‘Oh no, we can’t have this,’ so I was perfunctory, and practically urged him out the door instead of inviting him.”
John Randall smiled wistfully. “I know, son. Who do you think told me what you’d done?”
Keith Hewitt is the author of two volumes of NaTiVity Dramas: Nontraditional Christmas Plays for All Ages (CSS). Keith's newest book NaTiVity Dramas: The Third Season will be published September 2012. He is a local pastor, co-youth leader, former Sunday school teacher, and occasional speaker at Christian events. He lives in southeastern Wisconsin with his wife, two children, and assorted dogs and cats.
* * *
The Problem with Miracles
by C. David McKirachan
Mark 7:24-37
Through the years people have come to me on a regular basis either asking me to facilitate a miracle for them or a loved one or complaining of God’s silence and inactivity in the midst of their desperate pleas to heal someone precious to them. There is a lot of blame and guilt involved, complete with threats running the spectrum from withholding pledges, leaving the church, giving up their faith, to hurting either themselves, me, or my family. It seems this miracle business is fraught with peril.
Most of us think Jesus was above all of that. I mean He could heal somebody when He wanted to. So no problem. But there seem to have been all kinds of problems Jesus had to confront. It seems that sometimes He didn’t want to perform. And other times when He did, He got into hot water because of circumstances. Other times He chose to use miracles to cause controversy. And other times, it seems He was just plain pooped and wanted to be off line. No wonder He kept telling the ones who were healed to keep it to themselves. Who would want to live in the middle of all that desperation and misunderstanding?
But in some ways that is the human condition. Most of us live in either oblivious denial or desperation, most of the time. We are beings who want and need. It’s no surprise we are so easily manipulated by ads, all of which promise an end, or at least provide us a breather from our need. Jesus came to live among us, to be one of us, as we are, not as we ought to be. Didn’t He need?
It seems He did, in all the Human ways, hunger, fatigue, sadness, loneliness, but those basic needs didn’t separate Him from Himself or others. He held onto Himself and to them, because He never forgot that He was a child of God, loved and secure.
Someone once asked me what it was that I hope to accomplish when I walk into places of death and pain and darkness. I told them that I’ve realized it isn’t my job to solve these problems. God can if God choses to, and I’m not in the business of manipulating God. My job is to provide the non-anxious presence of Christ there in that darkness. If I can do that, who knows what might happen? But this I do know that where He is, healing walks with Him.
Pretty neat, huh?
C. David McKirachan is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Shrewsbury in central New Jersey. He also teaches at Monmouth University. Two of his books, I Happened Upon a Miracle and A Year of Wonder, have been published by Westminster John Knox Press. McKirachan was raised in a pastor's home and he is the brother of a pastor, and he has discovered his name indicates that he has druid roots. Storytelling seems to be a congenital disorder. He lives with his 21-year-old son Ben and his dog Sam.
*****************************************
StoryShare, September 6, 2015, issue.
Copyright 2015 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
